The fundamental purpose for the 3407 Forbes Avenue project in Oakland’s business district is to provide student housing for the University of Pittsburgh.

The developer sought a height variance at the Zoning Board of Adjustment and the variance unfortunately was approved. When the business community is destroyed, the residential community is destroyed as well.

Three council members wrote letters of support, and others remained silent while offering no opposition.

Councilman Dan Gilman – You likely would not have written a letter of support if the University of Pittsburgh wanted to destroy businesses and build student housing on South Aiken Street.

Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle – You are a voice for constituents who have faced injustice yet lose your courage when Pitt is the oppressor.

Council President Bruce Kraus – You tarnish your integrity by claiming in your letter that this project “helps to relieve a great deal of pressure that has been placed on a densely populated residential neighborhood” but offering no proof to support that statement.

It is obvious that this council’s agenda is to confine Pitt’s sprawling growth to Oakland, and not have it spread to your own neighborhoods.

I have come before this council nearly 30 times asking for greater caring for the Oakland community, especially the longtime residents.

Instead, you align yourself with a former chancellor who raised $2 billion in capital improvement for his university and nothing for the community;

a past chief of staff who said “We have no money” when asked for funding for a community anti-litter program;

an associate vice chancellor for business development who said, “Never,” when a longtime resident asked when Pitt’s Oakland expansion would end;

and an assistant vice chancellor of community relations who suggested the dormitory at Nordenberg Hall primary benefit for longtime residents was to “make money and give it to the city for its services.”

None of you took the time to know the longtime residents of Oakland who have passed away, or those who moved away because of Pitt’s never-ending expansion.

If you have, your connections at the University of Pittsburgh took precedence. That is Pitthetic.

One of the purposes of this city council is to enact laws protecting the people and heritage of this iconic neighborhood.

When you do not take action to uphold this purpose, you willingly forsake your constituents and your duties.

You become nothing more than puppets to the desires of the University of Pittsburgh administrators.

It is so and so it is.

Carlino Giampolo
Founder, SOUL (South Oakland Urban Litter)

Pitthetic: noun – a university, organization, government entity, or individual that negatively impacts a community by action or inaction; adjective – pathetic as a direct result of a university, organization, government entity, or individual's negative influence.